Pilots succeed because they avoid institutional friction; scale fails because it can’t
EnergyTech is full of pilots that work—and products that don’t scale. Advanced Metering Infrastructure delivers clean data in pilots. Distributed Energy Resources behave predictably in controlled environments. Storage systems hit performance benchmarks exactly as modeled. Everyone involved comes away impressed.
And then… nothing happens.
Months turn into years. The pilot report gathers dust. The rollout stalls. Founders are confused. Investors grow impatient. Utilities quietly move on to the next “innovation initiative.”
This is not a failure of technology.
It is a failure of institutional absorption.
Why Pilots Look So Good?
Pilots succeed because they are exception zones inside large institutions. They deliberately avoid the very forces that dominate scaled utility operations:
- Procurement rigidity
- Regulatory exposure
- Unionised workforce constraints
- Legacy IT entanglement
- Inter-departmental power boundaries
In a pilot:
- Decision-makers are visible and accessible
- Data quality is curated
- Scope is tightly controlled
- Timelines are protected
- Exceptions are tolerated
In other words, pilots operate in a parallel universe—one where friction is temporarily suspended.
The Hidden Function of Pilots (That No One Admits)
Officially, pilots exist to test technology. In reality, they often serve other institutional purposes:
- Signaling innovation intent to regulators
- Demonstrating progress to boards or governments
- De-risking perception without committing to change
- Buying time while structural questions remain unresolved
The pilot “succeeds” because success is narrowly defined:
- Did the tech work? Yes.
- Did we learn something? Yes.
The harder questions are deferred:
- Who owns this at scale?
- What processes must change?
- Who loses control or budget?
- What legacy systems must be retired or reengineered?
Those questions only surface after the pilot—and that’s where scaling breaks down.
Why Scale Is a Completely Different Game?
Scaling AMI, DERs, or storage is not a technical exercise. It is an organisational one. At scale, technology collides with:
- Enterprise-wide procurement rules
- Rate-case justifications and regulatory scrutiny
- Cybersecurity and data governance mandates
- Field workforce retraining
- Multi-vendor interoperability politics
- Long depreciation cycles of existing assets
A pilot bypasses these. Scale must confront them head-on.
Technology that thrives in a friction-free bubble often suffocates in real utility conditions.
The AMI Example: From Data to Decisions
AMI pilots usually prove that:
- Meters work
- Communications are stable
- Data flows as expected
Scaling exposes harder truths:
- Data volume overwhelms downstream systems
- Analytics outpace organisational decision-making
- Business units don’t trust or know how to act on insights
- Value depends on tariff reform, not just technology
The bottleneck is not meters.
It is decision rights and process change.
DERs and Storage: The Coordination Trap
DER and storage pilots excel because:
- Assets are few
- Control logic is simplified
- Grid conditions are modeled, not messy
At scale:
- Network effects dominate outcomes
- Coordination across planning, operations, markets, and regulation becomes mandatory
- Benefits depend on system-level optimisation, not asset-level performance
Utilities are structurally organised around silos.
DERs and storage demand cross-silo orchestration.
Pilots don’t require this. Scale does.
Why Founders Misread Pilot Success?
Founders often assume: “If the pilot worked, scale is just a commercial decision.”
From a utility’s perspective: “The pilot worked because we insulated it from reality.”
This mismatch creates frustration:
- Founders see irrational delay
- Utilities see unresolved risk
- Investors misjudge timelines
- Everyone blames execution
The truth is simpler—and more uncomfortable:
Scaling requires institutional redesign, not better demos.
The Investor Blind Spot
Investors love pilots because they look like traction. But pilots often tell you very little about:
- Procurement scalability
- Regulatory replicability
- Change-management cost
- Sales cycle length at enterprise scale
A signed pilot is not a weak signal—it’s often a misleading one.
The real question is not: “Does the technology work?”
It is: “Can this organisation absorb the technology without breaking itself?”
What Actually Scales in EnergyTech?
EnergyTech that scales tends to share three traits:
- It fits existing utility workflows before trying to transform them
- It reduces institutional friction instead of adding to it
- It embeds value realisation into day-to-day operations, not special projects
These solutions may look less “disruptive” in pilots—but they survive contact with reality.
A Final Reality Check
Pilots are easy because they are allowed to be exceptional. Scale is hard because it is forced to be normal.
Until EnergyTech founders, investors, and utilities stop treating pilots as precursors to scale—and start treating them as stress tests for institutional readiness—this pattern will repeat.
Successful pilots will keep failing to scale. Not because the technology isn’t ready. But because the institution isn’t.